Mathematical Treasure: Adrien-Marie Legendre’s Éléments de Géométrie

Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752–1833) published his Éléments de géométrie in 1794. The images shown here are from the third edition of 1800. This text went through many editions, which are notable in part for their multiple attempts to prove the parallel postulate. The book’s synthetic structure was seen as a sound and rigorous alternative to Euclid’s Elements, so it was translated into numerous languages and taught in classrooms around the world.

The first pages are definitions:

A translation of the text was published in the United States in 1819 as part of John Farrar’s Cambridge Series of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy for Harvard students:

Some more information on this text:

In 1822, the historian Thomas Carlyle also translated Éléments for David Brewster in Scotland. American professor Charles Davies of West Point later co-opted that translation, modified the proofs to restore references to particular diagrams, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his version—“Davies’s Legendre” became shorthand for a geometry textbook in the United States by the mid-19th century. Images from one of the many printings can be found in Convergence.

HathiTrust has full digitizations of the copies of Éléments and Elements owned by New York Public Library.

Index to Mathematical Treasures